O (Kinda Large) Tannenbaum

If there is one very good reason for owning a long mini-van, it is this:  

You can fold down the seats, and 

slide your fresh Christmas tree right in; 

  no roof-tying insanity.  

Me, wandering through a
tree farm, looking adorable.

Nowadays, we buy a fresh tree from a garden center around the corner from That Old House.  No more venturing into the vast Jersey wilderness to hack down our own specimen, followed by a hair-raising trip home on Route 80, with me convinced we'd cause a multi-car pileup when our tree went flying off the roof.  The year the tree farm guy tied a giant tree on with dental floss was the last straw.  

Our tree, hogtied in the back of the
minivan, Sunday afternoon.

No, now... we don heavy gloves (why is it always so cold on a tree lot?) and hunt the local lot.  Here's this year's victim lucky candidate, fresh out of the van and wrestled into the stand.

Late Sunday afternoon,
blue light time.

Which means ... all of our trees are UP, faux and fresh.  Some are partly finished, others awaiting their balls and bling.  The house is a tip, with still-to-be-deployed decorations and wreaths and garlands and ribbons running amuck, everywhere, but ... there's time.  And as always, what gets done, gets done ... and what doesn't, doesn't.

Fuzzy phone picture, Sunday evening.
Howard decides to do the lights another time.

I would attempt to put the lights on the sunroom tree, but I don't want to get scratched shoving strands of lights into the tree's innards; I hate pain.

Howard is a boy, so he gets to do the hard ouchy stuff.  :-)

Happy Monday morning, Tree!
(The picture is crooked, not the tree.  That's my story.)

My Dad believed that the more painful, scratchy, and fierce a tree's needles, the better it would last for the whole season.

Howard has adopted this belief, and has the scars to prove it.

Today, the tree looks happy, relaxed,

and ready for its bling.  

Last year's sunroom tree.

How do you choose a tree?

Do you cut one down, or find it on a lot?

Or take it out of a box?

Just a dozen days till Christmas Eve!

And remember:

Ho Ho Ho!  -- Cass

Visit The Graphics Fairy for a mind-boggling collection of vintage art.  Thank you, Karen!

Does This Mean I Have To Clean?

Oh dear.
One end of the Sunroom is looking mighty bare.

Back in mid-December

a big Canaan Fir moved in to spend Christmas with us.
Meaning the round oak table and the chandelier had to move out!

The tree took on lights and ornaments.

And stayed with us throughout the 12 days of Christmas,

and the beginning of the season of Epiphany.

All good things must come to an end.

Sigh ....

Does everyone hate to take down The Christmas Tree?

Well, luckily at That Old House,

there are a few others to take its place!

In our Dining Room ... 

a small artificial tree decorated with demitasse cups & saucers.

(An idea I stole borrowed from Mary at Little Red House.)

I aim toward dismantling the fresh Sunroom tree

shortly after January 6th, Epiphany.

But our artificial trees?  I like to let them linger a bit.
One year, they lingered till Groundhog Day, but we won't go that far this year.  Probably.

(Mrs. Gilda-the-Red likes to make napping nests

in the tree skirts.  Who am I to spoil her fun?)

Two more faux trees glam up the Parlor.

A few years ago, our artist daughter Anne decreed they be
decorated in white, silver, gold ... a wintry monochrome scheme.

Anne lives in Washington DC now,

but we've kept her pale and pretty color scheme.

And speaking of kids ... both Anne and Alida have

collections of ornaments from their childhood,

and they are hung on a tree in the study/family room.

One of these years, "the girls" will take their ornaments to their

own homes, but in the meantime ... they bling up our holiday.

Howard and I didn't quite finish putting the Sunroom 

back to rights after taking the tree down this weekend.

We'll get there.  We'll be back to normal soon.

(My gosh, that empty sunroom looks awful, and awfully cold!)

Happy 2015, my friends.

May this shiny new year bring you joy and blessings galore!

-- Cass

A Christmas Tree For Thanksgiving

At Christmas, we have a decorated tree in pretty much
every room.  Including the dining room. 

Up until a couple of years ago, we put a small spiral tree there,

and added pine cones to it, tucked in here and there.

 

But then, I remembered this picture,

from Mary's Little Red House blog:

Mary put a small tree in her dining room, and

festooned it with tea cups.  And I absolutely loved it.

So, out with the wee spiral tree.

And in with a small traditional tree.

That little tree is decorated with a lot of red,

and lots of birds, and lots of faux fruits & pine cones,

and lots of little vintage demitasse cups, their saucers Crazy-glued on.

Because who doesn't like a craft project at Christmas?

It's not a fresh tree; we put our big fresh tree in the conservatory,
where it is cool overnight and the fresh tree stays fresh.

No, the dining room tree is proudly fake.

Can you tell?  Oy.  I pretty much always forget

to toss a tree skirt around its spindly ugly plastic bottom.

Seriously, Cass, how hard is it to remember to do that?

Anyhoo, this year, on Thanksgiving Day, this tree will already be set up

in the dining room, but it will be nekkid as the day it was born.

There will be a nearby box, and maybe a basket or two,

of little vintage coffee cups, flocked birds, pinecones,

red and gold and silver glass balls ... all the lovely things that belong on this tree.

If you are one of our guests on Thanksgiving Day, I hope

you'll be inspired to grab a few ornaments and sling them onto the tree.

You will do this, or there may not be any hot gravy

at your end of the table.  It's good to be Queen.

Then come back to visit the tree you decorated, at Christmastime.

***************

Oh.  What happened to the little spiral tree?  It has a new job;

it stands sentry on the landing of our front hall stairs.

Just one week, my friends, till Thanksgiving!

Are you cooking this year? -- Cass

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Catching Up!

It's been more than a month since my last blog post.

I know!!!

Crazy, huh?   So what have you all been up to? 

We had a great Thanksgiving; 15 at table this year, which is probably about half what we usually have, but it made for a peaceful holiday, and a quicker cleanup!  As always, Howard wore his turkey shirt.  And for the first time ever, I forgot to get a picture of him in it.

Oh well.

At least I got this fellow, wandering the edge of a nearby road on the Sunday

before Thanksgiving.  Making his great escape, I guess.

We've had too much of this:

Anne, clearing ice off my van.

In the spirit of the season, Anne tried decking the dog with antlers.

Dylan decided to eat them instead.

But bigger brains prevailed.

Get that off, Mr. Smartypants.

After more than a year, the local birds discovered our window-hung

bird feeder.  They are not quick studies, our local birds.

Especially since the local squirrels discovered it at about the same time.

Our fresh tree, in the sunroom.

It's a winner this year -- and a species we have never heard of!

Canaan Fir.  It's wonderful.  If you can find one, grab it.

Do you like all the storage boxes and the white plastic around it?  Hahaha . . . we run a classy joint.

 This is me, singing at church.

OK.  That's a fib.

But what isn't a fib is that it has taken me all these weeks to get into 

the spirit of the season . . . and it's coming none too soon,

as our annual Christmas Grab Bag party is tomorrow.

Yikes.  I've got lots to do.  See you on the other side of Saturday!

-- Cass

Christmas Primping

It was a working weekend for my husband.

We picked out our fresh tree at a local nursery on Saturday,

and hauled it home in the back of the minivan.

On the drizzly Sunday, up it went in our sunroom.

Howard worked, Dylan snoozed,

I snapped some pictures and, um, supervised.

This year's tree is very dark and dense, and it has

consumed 1,300 lights and still looks not bright.

But since we don't want to cause a brownout in the neighborhood,

we are not adding any more strands!

I began tossing the ornaments on the tree, and as of last night

I'd worked my way through one Rubbermaid bin.  Almost.

Lots more tree and hundreds of ornaments to go! 

Why is it so wickedly hard to take pictures of Christmas trees?

 I decided to take some pictures this morning.

But when I looked at them, they looked . . . odd.
Kind of cool looking, but distinctly odd.

Turns out, Anne had been using my

Nikon Coolpix camera, which I rarely use,

and had left it set on an "only find the red colors" setting.
Duh.

 So what was I doing while Howard was manfully
stringing hundreds of teensy lights in our tree?

 I emptied the Rubbermaid bins full of Christmas decor.  As usual,
the dining room is the staging area.  North Pole, New Jersey.

So things are progressing here at That Old House.

I am getting very into the Christmas spirit, getting excited!

Dylan Dog, however, is taking things rather casually.

As he sees it, his job is still to scramble for treats, be adorable,

perform dogly duties such as being a lap desk for Anne's Ipad,

keep us on our toes by testing his limits

(most recently: "Dylan, no! Don't EAT the tree!"),

and grab a snooze whenever the moment seems right.

Like, now.

So goodbye for this Monday, from me, and Dylan,

and That Old House -- Cass

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P.S.  Dear friends -- I, like you, have shed countless tears the past 4 days, in our national -- no, worldwide -- agony of grief for the families in Newtown, Connecticut.  Is there a remedy for these incidents in a free society?  I think the best personal response that I've heard, other than our prayers, thoughts, hearts, is to respond to this random violence with random kindness.  I'm not sure how I'll accomplish this, and this won't affect those at the fringes who perpetrate these monstrous acts, but it is something, and most importantly, it is the opposite of what was done on Friday in that small New England town.  And, I can celebrate the birth of Jesus, and still rejoice in that.

Farewell Christmas, Hola 2012

I took a look around our neighborhood late last night.
We are not the only ones with our Christmas lights still blazing.

So please, come in . . . if you can get past our fierce guard dog . . .

for a glimpse of what we've been up to this Christmas.

Which is mostly . . . eating, at least according to this post!

(Ha ha!  Just noticed the empty box leaning on the stairs.

It's already been recycled; this picture is from New Year's Eve.)

Back we go, to the week before Christmas.

When we celebrated Chanukah.

That Old House gets her money's worth out of the winter holidays, that's for sure.

For years our girls have timed their Christmas visits home

to be here for an annual Chanukah Latke dinner.

Latkes are potato pancakes, and I make the shredded kind.

 And that's all we eat at that dinner -- crispy hot latkes, with sour cream and applesauce.

Most of the traditional Chanukah foods are fried in oil,

and I am sure you know why.  Oil.  Lamps.  The miracle of the 8 nights.  

I make a mean potato latke, if I do say so myself.

There are other ways to make them, but this is how we like them.

I've seen recipes for sweet potato latkes, celery root latkes, latkes with carrots,

and all sorts of other abominations . . . but not here.  We are potato pancake purists here.

We also light our Menorah, and everyone teases me because I insist that the Menorah, with its lit candles,

has to stand in the kitchen sink for safety's sake if we leave it burning unattended.

And this is nuts, how?

*********************************

Christmas morning, in the Parlor, and this year . . .

the joy of a third kid.  (A fourth if you count Howard.)

 A robotic arm for Howard from Anne, who has promised to help him assemble it.

Josh sporting his new hat from me, and one of his cigars from Howard.

We'll turn this one into a Jersey boy yet!

And what Dad wouldn't love to find bacon-flavored popcorn under the tree?

Howard in the sunroom, testing out the portable hammock I got him.

Have hammock, will travel to beach house.

I so wanted to see if I could fold it up with him still in it, 'cause then I'd have a portable-hammock-husband.

He was not game for this plan.

Christmas breakfast was something special.

Josh and Alida made Monkey Bread, a tradition with his family.

 And it was so good with strong coffee!

Anne made her trademark Special Waffles, which are so light you can hardly believe they are real.

Really.  They have no weight.  Therefore, they have no calories.

Later on Christmas Day, we piled in the car for the drive to Peg and Bill's house.

Peggy in her kitchen, preparing a fabulous dinner.  (It really was!)

I want her big Sub-Zero fridge and freezer, on the left.

She says I can't have them.  Sisters are so mean.

 Bill, in charge of the liquid refreshment.  Always a popular guy.

And Howard, in a new Christmas sweater, telling me to stop taking silly pictures.

 I didn't take pictures of all the "kids" as they were all wearing not just fuzzy slippers,

but questionable pajamas.

My girls and Peggy's decided years ago that if they were just going to be at one another's houses

for Christmas, they could just as well stay in their PJs and be comfy.  And that's what they do.

I love how Peggy does her mantle at Christmas.

Their Christmas tree, and the view across the foyer to their dining room.

This year there were so few "grownups" and so many "kids,"

that the kids got the dining room and we sat in the kitchen.  Ah, times change.

Ernie, the yellow Lab, filled his bed with torn wrapping paper,

and settled down for a long winter's nap with his favorite duck.

*********************************

During the holiday, Josh and Alida cooked dinner for us.

Chinese food -- the real deal.

While on their honeymoon in China in July, they took a cooking class.

It paid off.  This was so delicious!

They've promised to share the recipes, so when I get them I'll pass them along to you.

They are well worth trying.

********************************

FRIDAY FISH FRY!

On the Friday after Christmas, my girls and I scooted west on Route 80, to a Cracker Barrel, for lunch.

Now, Cracker Barrel wouldn't have been our first choice for a Ladies' Lunch Out,

except it was Friday and that means Fish Fry.

Oh yeah.

Fried cod, mac & cheese, and stewed apples.

 Brought back memories of the old Howard Johnson's Fish Fry nights.

Well, for me, anyway.  My girls are too young to remember them.

Anne got chicken, but Alida and I got the fish.

So, how is it, Alida?

I think she likes it.

Somewhere along the way that week, I made a big lasagna.

We're talking enormous.  Turkey roasting pan size.

 Me, I like the corners of lasagna.

This one fed the family, and then some a lot of friends.

Including Alida's former college roommate Alyssa and her boyfriend Steve,

shown here posing for me before leaving for a party on New Year's Eve.

"Mom, it's freezing!  Take the picture, already!"

Kids today.  No guts.

And the litany of What-We-Cooked and What-We-Ate isn't over yet.

On the day after New Year's, another group of "kids" at the house, and a huge pot of chili.

This is half the chili, keeping hot in a Crock Pot.

Alida made the chili, using the Silver Palate recipe that I love, and she took this picture, too.

Multi-talented, that child. 

Howard and I escaped the madding crowd, and lit a fire in the parlor.

So, it was a little fire.

 That brings us to today.  Saturday, January 7th.

Christmas is over, and the season of Epiphany began yesterday.

Our Sunroom tree is slated for de-decorating this weekend, and the

long trip to the curb.  It will end its illustrious career as mulch for the county parks system.

The Parlor trees are faux,

so as my sister-in-law Doris says, "They can stay up pretty much . . . forever!"

 But they won't.  I'll peck away at them this week, and the house will lose its glimmer and glitz,

and be a Plain Jane once again.  That's OK.  I think it's time we started decorating for Groundhog Day.

Any suggestions?

I hope you all had the merriest of Christmases, and I wish you all the happiest of New Years.

May 2012 bring us joy, purpose, friendship, and uneventful weather!

God bless us, everyone.  -- Cass